THE PECAN. 137 



are looking for the truth, will be convinced, at least so far 

 as to test the matter, which the scientist never does. The 

 "good old way" is always good enough for him even if it 

 does cost five times as much and gives inferior trees. 



The foregoing remarks on the pecan were written several 

 days before the recent freeze of March 20, and the book was 

 ready for the printer; but after the fall of the thermometer 

 to 20 degrees, a thing unknown this late for many years, I 

 concluded to wait and give its effects as a guide to the 

 hardiness of the various kinds of fruit. I have spent the last 

 few days examining fruit trees in yards and orchards around 

 Lampasas, and noticed some interesting and important 

 things. First, as to the relative ability of sod and cultivated 

 trees to retain their fruit after such a freeze, I find that 

 today, April i, as far as I know, there is not an Elberta tree 

 around here that has a single peach on it, where it has been 

 cultivated. My sod Elberta suffered worse than most other 

 kinds, but has a good one-fourth of a crop, while the two 

 rows of old Elberta shown on page 115, have about as much ; 

 but the tree by which I am standing is so full that it ought 

 to be thinned, though it will not be, as the owner, a lady, 

 has confidence in its ability to mature it all to good size. 

 And I also believe it will, for, appreciating its noble services 

 in the cause of truth and progress last summer (it being 

 the tree that bore the Rochester peaches), last winter I 

 top-dressed the ground around it and the two trees beyond 

 in both rows, very heavily with muriate of potash and old- 

 time Peruvian guano, a new deposit of which has been 

 recently discovered in the Pacific ocean and is now offered 

 for sale by Edmund Mortimer & Co., 13 William street, 

 New York. The effect has been most remarkable, for all the 

 fertilized trees are heavily loaded, while the balance have a 

 very moderate crop and several trees very few peaches. 

 Now, here is an effect just the opposite of what I expected, 

 for I had noticed before the freeze how vigorously the shoots 

 on those trees were pushing and their enormous bloom, and 

 the night of the freeze I thought of them and felt sure they 

 would lose all their fruit, the sap being in such a vigorous 



